Every X-book considered and assembled into a slipshod time-line, September '63 to May '86.

Sunday, 30 October 2011

UXM #123: "Listen -- Stop Me If You've Heard It -- But This One Will Kill You!"

(Literally no-one thinks you're funny.)

Comments

It must be hard to be Spider-Man (beyond spending your life being hammered by super-villains and still not make enough money to move your dinner dates out of the fast food range). Everyone focuses on your web-slinging powers and your... "acquired taste" one-liners. No-one stops twice to think about the kick-ass detective powers. Identifying Arcade's garbage-truck-cum-kidnap-hoover from the sound it makes sucking up superheroes? That's some Hercule Poirot shit, and no mistake. Shame your skills don't stretch to prompt phone calls, huh?

For today, Arcade makes his move. With Scott dealt with, his minions steal first Nightcrawler and Colossus (proof, were it needed, that going to ballet is a plan of horribly limited quality), and then move on to Wolverine (who's now dating Mariko - awww! I hope that never goes wrong!). Arcade himself turns up to snaffle Banshee and a nearly naked Storm (I'm sure that's just a coincidence....). and the games begin.

And what games they are! Such panache! Such thrills! Such... Stukas?

Yeah, I can't keep this up anymore. Arcade sucks. I assume he's supposed to run along similar lines to the Joker, but the comparison really doesn't work. The Joker is imaginative, not merely zany. More importantly, it's almost impossible to imagine anyone in charge of their cognitive faculties wanting to pay the Joker to kill anybody. You might as well spend the cash tattoing an intricate Celtic knot archery target on your arse. The Joker works according to twisted rules only he can comprehend. Arcade is just shitty at his job.

Still, at least he's hypnotised Colossus into thinking he's a working man's superhero known as "the Proletarian":

So I guess the next issue won't be a total loss.

Clues

The events of this issue take place over several hours.

The opening narration places this story in springtime. We've discussed at great length why that's impossible in an absolute sense, but that doesn't prevent us from using it to consider the time between this issue and the last. Were the dates of the last five issues were workable, there would be 85 days between them. Were we to assume the same thing, putting this issue in the first week of November.

Banshee, however, mentions that the restoration of the mansion's facilities has taken weeks, not months. We could deal with this disparity by increasing time periods elsewhere, either between UXM #119 and #120 or UXM #121 and #122. The latter would make sense, since it gives more time for Cyclops' battle with the Living Monolith, and because one can't imagine Sunfire making for much of a host, his country's debt to the X-Men notwithstanding.

We'll therefore add one week between #121 and #122 (any longer and Nightcrawler would have to be slacking on the job to spend so long figuring out the X-Jet was screwed), and three more between last issue and this. Ir's not a perfect solution, admittedly, but I'm beginning to forget what those look like in any case.

Date

Monday 14th of September, 1982.

X-Date

X+4Y+168.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 3.55 standard years.

(Storm is 35 years old.)
﻿

"AARRRGH!!"

﻿Contemporary Events

Grace Kelly passes away, aged 52.

Standout Line

""Sflanng"?! Where have I heard that bef -- Arcade!!" - Spiderman. The man's a phenomenon.